City/rural parity
Currently there are four individual doctors and two separate applications with the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to become an authorised prescriber of the drug RU 486.
Professor Caroline de Costa an Obstetrician based in Cairns, was the first doctor to use the authorised prescriber route, which is available for medical practitioners in Australia if they want to use a drug for a particular patient or a group of patients which isn’t normally available in Australia. Late last year Professor de Costa had her application (to prescribe RU 486) endorsed by the ethics committee of her hospital and now awaits a decision from the Health Minister.
The other three doctors are based in and around Mildura, Victoria. They argue that rural (and remote) women are disadvantaged by their geographical isolation when it comes to accessing an abortion. The disadvantage is two-fold:
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Lack of local surgical resources
- Difficulty in controlling privacy
A conscience vote is expected next month amoungst MP’s when parliament returns.
With paternalistic, infantilising rhetoric such as this, MP’s will hopefully show Australian women (and the men who support them) their sophistication and vote for the end of the current veto, the resumption of the TGA’s role and the widening of choice.
Image from here
January 9th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
Please, all of you, check out the facts on RU486 at RU486Facts.org before you make any decisions.
January 9th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Gran! – I refer you to my previous post.
Moreover, we’ve established that there will be an abortion, we are now discussing the surgical and medical options open to a woman and her medical practitioner in 2006.
January 9th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
And whether the Health Minister is in any way qualified to withhold or grant the use of this drug purely on the basis of his moral world view instead of scientific evidence and advice. And shucks you know? He isn’t.
January 9th, 2006 at 11:05 pm
Thanks kartar.
Abbott’s lack of appropriate qualification/s to sign off on the use/non use of drugs should not be overshadowed by his inability to see past his religion.
January 10th, 2006 at 5:56 am
It’s a very evocative image – young pregnant bride. (It gives me the sense of a prison somehow – perhaps it is the decor)
Another excellent post. I learn so much about the issues from your site. Thanks.
January 10th, 2006 at 6:05 am
Thanks David,
If you want more…
January 10th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
Suki, you shouldn’t concede there will be an abortion in the first place. There is madness in all the methods of abortion. RU486 is particularly bad, and I’m with Gran, people need the facts about the complications. It’s all a bit like debating whether to use gas chambers or a bullet, sure there are several methods to do violence, but i would have thought life-giving peace was the best option.
Suki, does your advocacy for this so called ‘choice’ have any limits whatsoever?
January 10th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
There will be an abortion marcel. In fact there are likely to be 80,000 abortions this year. Abortions happen – this has been established.
We are now discussing whether RU486 will be approved/not approved by the TGA or by the health minister.
I want a woman and her medical practitioner to have as much choice as they can possibly yum up.
Make yourself useful (and legitimate) marcel and campaign for more sex education, better contraception, healthier and safer couple relationships, more good-quality childcare places, research into congenital deformities, destigmatising disability, gender equality… because right now you come across as astoundingly naïve, someone who cares for women from behind a holy veil of seeing them only as baby-making-machines.
January 10th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
“…behind a holy veil of seeing them only as baby-making-machines.”
Bingo, Suki.
January 11th, 2006 at 8:49 am
One question Marcel has never answered is where in the flying fuck he got the right to tell women what to do with their bodies. I can only presume Marcel gets his authoritah from his god. If he has that right, surely Suki has the right to tell Marcel to rip his bowels out with a chainsaw- and enforce it. You know how much I love the smell of two-stroke…
However, Marcel’s not quite grasped the notion of a pluralist society. No one else is obligated to follow the faerie tales of Marcel White.
January 12th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
A pluralist or a relativist society weezil? If you don’t believe in truth then I suspect it is very easy for you to play pin-the-tail on moral issues. My ‘grasp’ of pluralist society is one where people are respected, no matter what their standing in the world. It is not very ‘pluralist’ to exclude all the babies in the womb from your considerations.
I don’t think you have got the grasp that there is a difference between a woman’s body, and her autonomy over it, and the body of the seperate human being she has inside her. The only fairy tale is the one about once upon a time there was a ‘choice’ and none of them lived happily ever after……
January 12th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
marcel,
You should provide me with a postal address so that I can collect all my used tampons and post them to you with a microscope.
You might just save a baby that has detached from my uterine wall.
COD ok?
January 12th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Touché, Suki.
Marcel, just because you believe in faerie tales still does not obligate others to do so. Yes, yes, yes, we know you think life begins at conception. This is a faerie tale based theory.
Science and evidence dictate that it’s not a baby unless you’re feeding it and changing its diapers. Prior to birth, it can be an embryo, a zygote or a fetus, but it’s certainly not a baby. Have a good long look through Suki’s microscope if you don’t believe me. Embryos, zygotes & fetii are part of a woman’s body.
Now, you are cordially invited to fuck off with your idiotic notions that women are vessels for your holy sperm, ok?
January 13th, 2006 at 9:36 am
Marcel – ignore these evil baby eaters. They are mean and will never get to Tony-Abbott-Heaven.
And, dear Marcel, let me raise with you another issue of serious concern to all right thinking people: skin exfoliating creams.
For every time an evil autonomous woman applies one of these devil-sponsored cosmetic products, she is shedding precious skin cells which (with the aid of cloning technology) could be turned into NEW LIFE!
So all power to you Marcel. And as we pass on the street, let us know one another by our hermetically sealed bubble-suits [let no skin cell go to waste]
January 13th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
sdj, spot on.
I’d also like for Marcel and those of his ilk to sign contracts in which they agree never to employ any medical treatments developed through technologies like cord blood and stem cell therapies, even though it may save them from a lifetime of misery if not an unusually short lifetime.
Now, that’s commitment, baby!
January 13th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Wow, Suki. I’m so jealous that Marcel is still stalking you.
Jeebus. Does he really think, after reading all your thoughtful and beautifully written posts that he’s going to change your mind with his incoherent rantings?
I second Suki’s suggestion, and I too offer up all my used tampons for you to save or grieve for.
January 13th, 2006 at 6:02 pm
Thanks Anna.
We could start a ‘tampons and skin cells for marcel’ drive.
January 13th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
The worst thing for Marcel in this line of argument is that there’s fuck all difference between a 2-cell human zygote and a 2-cell zygote of any other mammal, short of about 7-10% of the DNA. One of these days, Marcel is going to have to realise that all of mammalia are just lumps of bony meat, not works of divinity. Humans are just very talented primates- so talented that somewhere along the way, we invented the incredibly speciesist construct of religion to explain our success. Our clever imaginations have killed more people in the last 2000 years than just about anything else.
If religion had not been invented and someone suddenly came up with it out of the blue tomorrow afternoon at 3 o’clock, psychologists would have that person sedated in a rubber room so fast it’d make ya head spin. The displaced self-importance and grandiosity of evangelical nutbags would be quickly diagnosed as sociopathy with narcissistic personality disorder.
Shut up and eat ya bananas, Marcel.
January 13th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
For those of you who haven’t bothered to search it up, the first poster in this thread wants you to go look at RU486Facts.org.
If you look up the domain name registration for RU486Facts.org, you’ll find that the site was registered by a ‘Susan Wills’ and is operated by an entity called “USCCB.”
USCCB is in fact the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Susan Wills is the “Assistant Director for Program Development of the USCCB Secretariat for Pro-life Activities.”
Sounds a bit like a “Grand Kollossal Krapwizard for Anti-Choice Propaganda and Merciless Haranguing of Uppity Women.”
You’ll not be getting a lot of unbiased, medical and scientific facts about RU486 from the Cathlicks, but you certainly will get a big fat dose of Cathlick dogma.
WHEN will the Cathlicks learn to keep their rosaries off women’s ovaries? If there’s a third chair in an OB/GYN’s office, it certainly is not there for a priest.
January 14th, 2006 at 10:59 am
“I’d also like for Marcel and those of his ilk to sign contracts in which they agree never to employ any medical treatments developed through technologies like cord blood and stem cell therapies”
I’m happy to never use ‘treatments’ where the process of research killed human beings. Remember, though, cord blood cells are an ethical alternative to destructive embryonic stem cell research, the latter being human beings. Pro lifers supports cord blood use when the baby is not harmed.
“Science and evidence dictate that it’s not a baby unless you’re feeding it and changing its diapers.” That sentence sounds like it was copied out of My First (liberal) Dictionary. By your ‘scientific definition’ an African child who does not wear diapers is not a real baby, as he/she is missing one of the empirically proven signs of childhood: a nappy. I’ve got to hand it to you Weezil, you never let well reasoned arument get in the way of anti-life invective.
January 14th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Since when is pro-choice necessarily anti-life, Marcel? You seem like you’re at the bottom of your slippery slope. Choice is about many options, not none. No choice is your bag, not ours.
Would you kindly leave your postal address next time? Our house has become a DNA drop-off point for all the uppity women we know.
There’s all manner of babies piling up around here, you know.
January 14th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
marcel,
You bring nothing but your inane religious beliefs and far-ranging uterus-traffic control to all women’s bodies. Why should I provide you with bandwidth for your arrogant, paternalistic spew?
January 14th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
I think youse guys should stop picking on Marcel.
As a relative newbie to Marcel’s hip and fun pro-life brigade, I am hoping he will share with me the secret of what to do with my excess emitted sacred seed.
Damnit Marcel, help a brother here! I keep mistaking it for the milk.
January 14th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
Surely, sdj, you could sell your seed to a pious virgin for a hefty price.
Marcel? Any suggestions on who to speak to about a business transaction? All the used tampons and soiled tissues you can buy!
January 15th, 2006 at 7:35 am
Don’t expect Marcel to come back anytime soon.
sdj, you certainly wouldn’t want to spill your seed upon the ground. Onanism is downright dangerous. I hear that Marcel’s god kills wankers… which makes one wonder why Marcel is still breathing.
Anna, what do pious virgins need with spilled seed? Need a turkey baster with that? 😉
January 15th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
I doubt they’ll want yours – no offence. But I reckon Jesus may get a good price, despite the smelly/dead part..
January 15th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
A worthy thought Anna. Regrettably my holy-non-existent-father [God to u Marcel] holds an exclusive franchise on the virgin market.
However, given that Marcel seems to have some sort of proprietary interest in women generally, dad may well have cut him some sort of time-share deal on the virgins.
Do not ask me. Omniscience was never my thing. I do crucifixions, cheap party tricks involving wine and am generally the Jamie Packer figure in this whole religion gig.
January 16th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
sdj, all I ask is that you don’t go jogging on the swimming pool while we’re trying to do baptisms, k?
January 16th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Jogging!??! Weezil, all forms of physical activity have been a bit too much of a strain for me since that fateful Easter 2005 & a bit yrs ago. I am, as my name suggests, not doing so well on the old wellbeing-o-meter at the moment. Quite frankly, I would happily just sink into a disembodied state of nothingness – somewhere sunny with no bleating Christians and a bit of a view would be nice. But, as you have probably noticed, Marcel and his mob have elected me a kind of deity/mascot and it seems a bit rude to leave when they are all trying so hard.
January 17th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
for goodnes sake all you women above! those tampons are not ‘used’, they are ‘filled’. another little sunbeam for Jesus. and subconsciously, Mr White wants to fertilise them all.
January 18th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
[…] Suki writes on the status of abortion pill providers in Australia. With attitudes like this prevailing, it ain’t pretty. […]
January 18th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
“I’m happy to never use ‘treatments’ where the process of research killed human beings”
Good. Then rip the collar off any life vest you’re using, and freeze to death in a cold ocean. After all, you can’t be benefiting from Nazi research.